North Carolina's coastal region has a long history of development that is most concentrated in oceanfront regions such as the Outer Banks and other barrier island beach communities. As land becomes scarce in oceanfront regions, interior coastal zones have the potential to act as outlets to absorb development pressure related to amenity, retirement, and working-age in-migrants. With this inland coastal boom, North Carolina is seeing different types of land cover change.

Digital elevation models have been developed as a tool for flood extent mapping of floodplains. These maps provide information on the extent of areas potentially devastated by floods, and can be used as a tool to assess social and economic impacts of such natural hazards.

Following the theoretical foundations of the Global Transpark concepts and the history of its implementation in North Carolina, Burke and Sulewski discuss the missteps, discord, and criticisms from a regional planning perspective.